Nobel Season Opens: Medicine Prize to Be Announced in Stockholm
The Karolinska Institute will reveal the first laureate of 2026 at 11:10 CEST. The names remain a closely guarded secret until the moment of announcement.
The 2026 Nobel Prize season opens today, with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm set to announce the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is the first of this year's awards and, as always, the shortlist has been kept secret. The Nobel Committee will not reveal its decision before 11:10 CEST.
Last year, the prize was shared by two US-based scientists, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, along with their Japanese colleague Shimon Sakaguchi, for discoveries in the field of peripheral immune tolerance. The three were honoured for "their outstanding discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance, which prevents the immune system from harming the body," the institute said at the time. Experts described the findings as key to understanding autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.
Between 1901 and 2025, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded 116 times, with 232 laureates in total.
Medicine is followed by physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, and literature on Thursday. After the Peace Prize is announced on Friday, the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be revealed on October 12.
The prize sum this year is 12 million Swedish kronor, approximately 1.09 million euros, regardless of whether it is awarded to one person, a small group, or an organisation. The award ceremony takes place on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes. He died in 1896.
For now, the scientific world waits. Speculation will be rife, predictions will be made, and names will be thrown around in the hours before the announcement. But the Nobel Committee has a habit of surprising everyone. The only certainty is that, by midday, another chapter in the history of science will be written. And someone, somewhere, will receive the call that changes their life.
Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com